This is either a troll or you really do not understand the costs of theoretical research. If it is the former then you got me. If it is the latter then here are a few more costs to consider; 1. Wages of the PHDs. 2. Wages of the grad students helping the PHDs. 3. Administration costs for above payroll. 4. Costs of lab space. 5. Costs of computer time for simulations. A two year research project with a team of 2 professors and 4 grad students could easily run over a couple of million dollars. If many universities have research programs based on this unproven discouvery the combined costs could be quite high. Theoretical research is not cheap. How about we save the money till we are sure.
In the unlikely case it turns out to be something else, we can just start over.
So we can spend millions of dollars, and perhaps billions if a huge linear accelerator is built, going down the wrong track instead of waiting a few months or years to confirm the single experiment. IResearch funding should be spent on confirmation rather than advancement based on a single experiment.
I thought I was OCD on semantics. Please replace the "unique keys" with "specific keys". Even though the keys may not be unique it does not matter as there is a very low chance that one key will open a set of cuffs not matched to them.
You've again introduced a "unique" straw man. I never demanded uniqueness.
I never stated anything about uniqueness; just that if all keys can not open all cuffs there will be issues.
I would hope that all prisoner handoff procedures are regimented pedantically, with strictly controlled protocol, and no room for sloppiness.
A suspect is not evidence so a chain of custody is not needed and handoffs may not need to be "regimented pedantically, with strictly controlled protocol, and no room for sloppiness". A handoff may be as simple as "Watch these guys while I talk to this other guy". In this situation the officer watching may have a number of keys in his pocket; one for each suspect. Since he is not in a controlled environment he does not have the facility to put these keys on a board. When dealing with multiple agressive suspects it is very likely a mistake in key passing will occur.
The concept of handing over 2 things simultaniously rather than 1 shouldn't be that much of an increase in the complexity of procedure.
That would be true if all handovers were one prisoner to one person in a controled environment where one has enough time to control the keys. In the above example the watching officer may have ten different keys in his pocket which may have to go to ten different transport officers. Misreading a key number is very easy at this point. Even reading the lock number from the cuffs to ensure that the right key is passed may be impossible if the suspect does no cooperate.
In reality, if each set had a distinct key, the officer would simply need to hand the key over to the next guy, along with the prisoner, whenever custody changes. No big deal.
I guess you have never watched an episode of "Jail" on tv. Prisoner transfer is not that easy. Think about it for a second. A police department has thousands of sets of cuffs. Keys get lost. The department would spend millions just making replacement keys. What happens when one puts 5 suspects into a paddy wagon. The transport officer now has 5 keys. When these suspects get to the jail they will be separated. Don't you think that it is highly likely that keys could get mixed up?
When a suspect is sitting in a car and their cuffs become too tight or loose it is very good that any officer can adjust them without looking for the arresting officer.
The detention of a suspect can take many stages; arresting officer to transport officer to intake officer to investigating officer to jail custodian. At any of these points the officer may have a number of keys for different suspects and may pass on the wrong key.
If one uses unique keys I bet conversations similar to the following would occur; Hey Bob do you have suspect x's keys? No, I gave them to Bill. I hope not because he went home at the end of his shift. Maybe it was Tom. Tom, do you have the keys for suspect X? Yeah, Here they are. Oh crap these are the ones for suspect Y. I gave Terry the wrong key. I'll go find him. Terry do you have the key I gave you for suspect Y? No, I passed it along to Max. etc. Keeping track of individual keys when the suspect is passed from officer to officer many times is a nightmare.
As for a master key; every officer already has a master key.
Since you can not attack the argument you attack the person. Perhaps you should look up ad hominem. I do know a huge amount of information; it comes from being OCD about research. What I don't know I look up. If you "acknowledge the limitations of your knowledge" then why did you comment in the first place on how bad the practices were. There are two valid ways of dealing with lack of knowledge; don't comment or do research. I prefer research. It seems you prefer to comment when you know you don't have the knowledge. If you are unsure of something please look it up before posting.
A few points; 1. Some departments have common cuffs so the officer drops off a suspect in cuffs, grabs another set of cuffs and leaves. Since he already has keys for the cuffs there is no problem. 2. In a large department there are thousands of sets of cuffs. If each cuff had unique keys that would be cutting keys constantly because keys get lost. 3. In a large holding facility there can be hundreds of suspects/inmates. Just try to keep track of who has which cuffs and find the keys when cuffs have to come off quickly due to a medical emergency. 4. Sometimes prisoner transport is not so simple as arresting officer to jail. Sometimes it is arresting officer to transport officer to intake officer to investigating officer to jail custodian. If at every stage keys would have to be passed there is a possibility of the wrong key being passed. For example the transport officer may be driving a bus with 20 suspects and may need to keep track of 20 different keys.
Please think about what can go wrong when thinking up solutions.
Zip ties cost less the first 30 times they are used but after that they cost more. A set of handcuffs can last years. Say someone arrests 100 people a year and cuffs last 10 years. If one used zip ties it would cost around 10*100*2= $2000 or $60 for a set of steel cuffs.
The other issue is the zip ties can be cut on any sharp edge or broken by a strong and/or drugged up person.
If you use rigid cuffs, with hands behind the back, and palms facing away from each other,escaping from handcuffs requires either a contortionist or someone willing/able to dislocate joints.
I have a rotator cuff injury and pinched nerves in my right arm. My hands will not come together back to back behind me. In fact I would loose blood supply to my arm in that position. Any officer who tried that would be guilty of abuse. How would the officer tell if I am lying or telling the truth? He would have to take my word for it. Then there are people so big that the above configuration can not be used. Rigid cuffs are a simple solution that does not always work considering how complex the issue is.
A saw as you suggest would be a few cubic inches in volume and would easily be found in a pat down. Have you heard of anyone cutting handcuffs with such a device? Perhaps it is because concealing such a device would be impossible. Even though it is smaller than 18" bolt cutters it is still much larger than a key.
Your first reference about being kidnapped is complete allegation where nothing has been proven, the officers have not been charged or gone to court. Perhaps it was fabricated to throw suspicion on the officers? Your second reference to "beat the shit out of" which at most was slapped in the face four times with an open hand. No medical attention was given or required. Try reading the whole article. Your third reference to a "torture chair" is about a restrain device used to control suspects who do not follow instructions or who may harm themselves. They are always videoed while in the chair and there are limits to how long they can be there at a stretch. Here is a quote from a report of an interview as the mother of the deceased baby left the jail;
She said all week long she asked to be placed in the infirmary or see a doctor but she said that didn't happen. She said she wasn't feeling well and began cramping in her cell. Deshawn Balka said she went to the bathroom and she said that's when she had her baby in the toilet, thinking she was having a bowel movement.
So a woman with cramps who has been complaining all week thinks she is having a bowel movement but gives birth. Please note that nowhere did she state that she called out to jail staff for help.
None of your quoted articles have gone to court and are, at this point, allegations. It seems strange that the same people who insist on calling people caught in the act "suspects" are also the same people that believe every allegation against the police. Sure there are some bad officers but there are also some people who try to make the police look bad.
And finally nowhere in the "Always Resist" article is there any advice to resist the police. Read the article.
Considering how little you actually read in any of these articles I will "consider the writer" when I decide to take the advice. My opinion based on evidence gleaned from actually reading the quoted articles and other related articles is that the writer is a sensationalist who had no regard for facts.
Who holds the design and patent rights to the keys?
Design and patent rights are a civil matter and not a criminal matter. Until there is a law passed that criminalizes the possession of handcuff keys there is nothing the police can do.
There is only one set of legitimate buyers for these handcuffs.
There are actually at least five sets and possibly more; police, prison guards, court house guards , private security and bounty hunters. Basically anyone who has a legitimate reason for detaining someone else.
it is pretty difficult to unlock the handcuffs even you if had and could reach the key
Difficult is not impossible and with enough practice difficult becomes easy.
Keys can be in the mouth, swallowed, in a seam, in a concealed compartment in a belt loop, etc. There are many places to carry a key that will get by most searches. There was one instance where a man has a pouch surgically installed in his cheek just big enough to hold a handcuff key. Many "escape artists" conceal keys on their person for their acts and these keys are not found by the spectators, sometimes police officers, who search them.
No matter how complex the key bolt cutters usually work but it is rather difficult to conceal a set of bolt cutters big enough to do the job on one's person and bolt cutters that large are not all that common. Hand cuff components are made of hardened steel and a small set will not work.
Hand cuffs are and never have been completely secure. They are more secure than the cuffs that have been around for years as those keys are very common now but they are less secure than hoped.
There used to be one key that would open every handcuff in current use. Now there are at least three different ones. Even this makes things more secure as the suspect has to have at least three keys to ensure escape. Three keys are much more difficult to conceal than one. Officers can easily carry three keys on their key ring. It is not about making escape impossible; just more difficult.
It has nothing to do with mass production. The reason is so that any officer can open any other officer's cuffs and time is lot lost trying to find the arresting officer and sorting out who owns which cuffs..
Did you read the article? All handcuff keys for a certain brand are identical. That is to allow one officer to handcuff a suspect and any other officer to remove the cuffs. The issue is that the arresting officer may not be anywhere around when the suspect needs to be uncuffed as the suspect may have been passed on for transport. This is the way handcuff keys work. Manufacturers are now trying to restrict the possession of keys by being selective to whom they sell. The printer/laser cutter method of making keys now makes this effort useless.
Every one of your arguments are taking small statements out of context, adding them together and creating a crisis where none is present. How about you look at the whole picture instead of putting blinders on to what is working.
According to my reading of NEJM and Science, XDR is appearing in many parts of the world in which TB is treated inadequately, such as Russia, and when it appears, it often can't be treated at all, the TB progresses and the patient often dies.
How does that statement relate at all to the US? The former USSR didn't even have a functioning health care system to start with thane they tried to change it. The US is nowhere near that. Yes, there are cuts in some area so that funding can be used more efficiently elsewhere. Comparing the US to USSR is not accurate. What is happening in the rest of the world and what is happening in the US are very different thing. Care to quote those articles that supposedly support your claims? Without quotes I will have to assume they do not exist and you are merely making things up.
Eventually people like you will be seen as "Chicken Little" and not believed. The health system in the US is not disintegrating as you seem to believe. It is nowhere near like it is in China and the former USSR
You're comparing the cost of an ICU bed with the cost of an ordinary hospital room with infectious precautions.
According to this site It costs at least $37,574 for a Tib Fib break with an average 4.8 day stay. That is $7827/day. Even if it cost $15000 to set the initial break that would be $4700/day. Hospital costs are high because nurses, doctors, pharmacists, etc are working 24/7, There is a lot of very expensive equipment that needs to be paid for , etc.
I think we as a society should spend at least as much for the active infectious diseases as we do for the theoretical risks of biowarfare.
The difference between an active infectious disease and biowarfare is that biowarwafe is designed to have a 90%+ mortality rate, spread extremely quickly and overwhelm a country before it can respond. Naturally occurring diseases are no where near that contagious or lethal.
I don't have all the details on whether the closing of that hospital was a good health care policy, or whether it was medically appropriate to keep those TB patients in motel rooms, so I'll have to suspend judgment until I get all the facts.
Considering that you do not know the facts them please do not comment on them and make them look like poor decisions. The facts are easy to find. Just use Google and critical thinking.The reason for closing the hospital was that it was costing $10 million/year to support 50 beds that were only ever occupied half the time. That money is much better spent on hospital isolation wards in areas that people are getting sick.
In an eight month period 900 people died of SARS. In an average year during the same period 167,000 to 333, 000 die from the common seasonal flue. This is an example of how using technical terms such as pandemic can blow things out of proportion. TB is not a new disease and neither is resistant TB. In the US the incidence of resistant TB is declining. In the last year reported there were 103 cases of resistant TB in the US. And no "outbreaks" of resistant TB.
The problem with Florida is that the Republican governor and legislature just closed down the very hospital they need to treat TB at a time when XDR is emerging as a real threat.
Prove this statement. How does closing down a 50 bed hospital have a major impact on an outbreak. You also need to justify the statement that "XDR is emerging as a real threat" when the actual numbers say something completely different. Show me how it is an emerging threat in North America.
As the NEJM says, the only way to deal with MDR and XDR strains is prevention.
I think you have very much oversimplified NEJM's position of XDR-TB. Here is an actual quote from a NEJM article;
All evidence suggests that XDR tuberculosis reflects a failure to implement the measures recommended in the WHO's Stop TB Strategy.5 This strategy emphasizes expanding high-quality DOTS programs, addressing HIV-associated tuberculosis and drug resistance, strengthening health care systems and primary care services, encouraging all providers to follow good practices, empowering patients and communities to improve health, and enabling and promoting research.
Prevention is only one part of the above strategy.
Many of them have latent disease, which means they feel OK but are transmitting TB
Here is an example where your information is completely incorrect. Here is a quote from the CDC fact sheet'
Persons with latent TB infection are not infectious and cannot spread TB infection to others.
Please get your fact straight.
Science magazine had even more pessimistic articles about XDR.
Care to cite any of these "science magazines"?
They sent a reporter to the former USSR, where they have no functioning health system
I believe there is a "functioning health care system" in North America so any comparison with the former USSR are invalid.
According to TFA, they're putting up TB patients in motels!
TB has a contagious stage and an non-contagious stage. The thing is that many people do not take their medication during the non-contagious stage and need to be watched. Putting up non-contagious patients who need to complete the second part of their treatment in hotels so proper medication can be ensured is not a bad thing. Many are homeless and all they need to have done is be fed and given medications at regular intervals. One does not need a hospital bed to do that. In cases of people with homes this would be done in their homes. I would much rather see a $50/day hotel used than a $3000/day hospital bed that could be used by an acute patient.
The numbers are not important. What's important is the emergence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) and extremely-drug resistant (XDR) strains. MDR strains are difficult to treat. Some doctors say that XDR strains can be treated with great difficulty and expense, but I've read of cases of XDR that doctors couldn't treat at all.
So fear mongering about a crisis that may never happen and is not happening now is more important that real facts and figures. This just plays into the hands of drug companies who w
I don't know why people think tracking an aircraft can't be done.
I never said it could not be done. I just said that doing it in an uncontrolled environment is very different from doing it in a controlled environment. I would have the same opinion is Big Dog. had been tested indoors on a rubber floor and the touted as being in its " final steps" of testing for real life deployment.
By the way, the tracking system you saw last year was for a much larger UAV. This is a man portable UAV,is much harder to track at distances and the area of the power receiver is also much smaller.
p to solve most problems with ground clutter
Ground clutter maybe but rain, dust storms, fog, etc will disperse laser light no matter how high the aircraft is. Remember that the lase source is in the ground clutter.
I suspect the laser will be vehicle mounted,
There are many places where vehicles can not go. If you restrict the use to areas where the truck can get to the the usefulness is greatly decreased.
Park your laser on any hilltop in your control
That is a very simplistic solution to a very difficult issue. In mountainous terrain such as Afghanistan there are many ridges that block LOS. The reason to us UAVs is to see behind those ridges to find insurgents.
Anyway, they appear to be too busy overcoming the problems to realize it's impossible.
That is my whole point; they have not done anything that has not been done before and therefore have not "overcome" any problems. Instead of doing a sanitized lab test and saying they are in the "final stages" do a real world test in poor conditions and then publicize it. Then maybe I will be less skeptical.
It does not matter how stable the aiming platform is it it can not track the target that is unstable as it reacts to winds. The other issue is that lasers are dispersed by airborne particles (dust), rain, head haze, range, etc. Will enough energy be transmitted over kilometers to keep the UAV in the air? What about trees, buildings and hills? Will they obstruct the beam. How heavy is the sending laser? The Stalker is designed to be deployable by a single Special Forced soldier. Can one deploy the laser recharger too?
Here are some issues that are greatly simplified by testing indoors in a wind tunnel; 1. Tracking; The aircraft does not move therefore tracking is trivial. 2. Range; Sure it may work at a few feet but does it work at a few kilometers? 3. Atmospheric conditions; Atmospheric conditions can be completely controlled indoors. Does it work in heat haze, rain, snow, dust, etc. at range?
At least do a test that remotely approximates a real world situation. Everyone knows that power can be transmitted by laser which is all that this test proves.. again. It still has not overcome the many known issues with using lasers to transmit power to aircraft. I effect it proves what has already been proven many times ind is not an advance at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Now that is either a troll or a very stupid poster. I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt and go with the former.
This is either a troll or you really do not understand the costs of theoretical research. If it is the former then you got me. If it is the latter then here are a few more costs to consider;
1. Wages of the PHDs.
2. Wages of the grad students helping the PHDs.
3. Administration costs for above payroll.
4. Costs of lab space.
5. Costs of computer time for simulations.
A two year research project with a team of 2 professors and 4 grad students could easily run over a couple of million dollars. If many universities have research programs based on this unproven discouvery the combined costs could be quite high. Theoretical research is not cheap. How about we save the money till we are sure.
In the unlikely case it turns out to be something else, we can just start over.
So we can spend millions of dollars, and perhaps billions if a huge linear accelerator is built, going down the wrong track instead of waiting a few months or years to confirm the single experiment. IResearch funding should be spent on confirmation rather than advancement based on a single experiment.
I thought I was OCD on semantics. Please replace the "unique keys" with "specific keys". Even though the keys may not be unique it does not matter as there is a very low chance that one key will open a set of cuffs not matched to them.
You've again introduced a "unique" straw man. I never demanded uniqueness.
I never stated anything about uniqueness; just that if all keys can not open all cuffs there will be issues.
I would hope that all prisoner handoff procedures are regimented pedantically, with strictly controlled protocol, and no room for sloppiness.
A suspect is not evidence so a chain of custody is not needed and handoffs may not need to be "regimented pedantically, with strictly controlled protocol, and no room for sloppiness". A handoff may be as simple as "Watch these guys while I talk to this other guy". In this situation the officer watching may have a number of keys in his pocket; one for each suspect. Since he is not in a controlled environment he does not have the facility to put these keys on a board. When dealing with multiple agressive suspects it is very likely a mistake in key passing will occur.
The concept of handing over 2 things simultaniously rather than 1 shouldn't be that much of an increase in the complexity of procedure.
That would be true if all handovers were one prisoner to one person in a controled environment where one has enough time to control the keys. In the above example the watching officer may have ten different keys in his pocket which may have to go to ten different transport officers. Misreading a key number is very easy at this point. Even reading the lock number from the cuffs to ensure that the right key is passed may be impossible if the suspect does no cooperate.
In reality, if each set had a distinct key, the officer would simply need to hand the key over to the next guy, along with the prisoner, whenever custody changes. No big deal.
I guess you have never watched an episode of "Jail" on tv. Prisoner transfer is not that easy. Think about it for a second. A police department has thousands of sets of cuffs. Keys get lost. The department would spend millions just making replacement keys. What happens when one puts 5 suspects into a paddy wagon. The transport officer now has 5 keys. When these suspects get to the jail they will be separated. Don't you think that it is highly likely that keys could get mixed up?
When a suspect is sitting in a car and their cuffs become too tight or loose it is very good that any officer can adjust them without looking for the arresting officer.
The detention of a suspect can take many stages; arresting officer to transport officer to intake officer to investigating officer to jail custodian. At any of these points the officer may have a number of keys for different suspects and may pass on the wrong key.
If one uses unique keys I bet conversations similar to the following would occur;
Hey Bob do you have suspect x's keys?
No, I gave them to Bill.
I hope not because he went home at the end of his shift.
Maybe it was Tom.
Tom, do you have the keys for suspect X?
Yeah, Here they are. Oh crap these are the ones for suspect Y. I gave Terry the wrong key. I'll go find him.
Terry do you have the key I gave you for suspect Y?
No, I passed it along to Max.
etc.
Keeping track of individual keys when the suspect is passed from officer to officer many times is a nightmare.
As for a master key; every officer already has a master key.
Since you can not attack the argument you attack the person. Perhaps you should look up ad hominem. I do know a huge amount of information; it comes from being OCD about research. What I don't know I look up. If you "acknowledge the limitations of your knowledge" then why did you comment in the first place on how bad the practices were. There are two valid ways of dealing with lack of knowledge; don't comment or do research. I prefer research. It seems you prefer to comment when you know you don't have the knowledge. If you are unsure of something please look it up before posting.
A master key is exactly what they are using right now. In fact all officers have a master key.
A few points;
1. Some departments have common cuffs so the officer drops off a suspect in cuffs, grabs another set of cuffs and leaves. Since he already has keys for the cuffs there is no problem.
2. In a large department there are thousands of sets of cuffs. If each cuff had unique keys that would be cutting keys constantly because keys get lost.
3. In a large holding facility there can be hundreds of suspects/inmates. Just try to keep track of who has which cuffs and find the keys when cuffs have to come off quickly due to a medical emergency.
4. Sometimes prisoner transport is not so simple as arresting officer to jail. Sometimes it is arresting officer to transport officer to intake officer to investigating officer to jail custodian. If at every stage keys would have to be passed there is a possibility of the wrong key being passed. For example the transport officer may be driving a bus with 20 suspects and may need to keep track of 20 different keys.
Please think about what can go wrong when thinking up solutions.
Zip ties cost less the first 30 times they are used but after that they cost more. A set of handcuffs can last years. Say someone arrests 100 people a year and cuffs last 10 years. If one used zip ties it would cost around 10*100*2= $2000 or $60 for a set of steel cuffs.
The other issue is the zip ties can be cut on any sharp edge or broken by a strong and/or drugged up person.
Good idea for a jail but not so much for a patrol officer as they have enough stuff hanging off their belts.
I was wondering when someone would ask. The key is tied to a thread, tied to a molar and pulled back when needed.
If you use rigid cuffs, with hands behind the back, and palms facing away from each other,escaping from handcuffs requires either a contortionist or someone willing/able to dislocate joints.
I have a rotator cuff injury and pinched nerves in my right arm. My hands will not come together back to back behind me. In fact I would loose blood supply to my arm in that position. Any officer who tried that would be guilty of abuse. How would the officer tell if I am lying or telling the truth? He would have to take my word for it. Then there are people so big that the above configuration can not be used. Rigid cuffs are a simple solution that does not always work considering how complex the issue is.
A saw as you suggest would be a few cubic inches in volume and would easily be found in a pat down. Have you heard of anyone cutting handcuffs with such a device? Perhaps it is because concealing such a device would be impossible. Even though it is smaller than 18" bolt cutters it is still much larger than a key.
Your first reference about being kidnapped is complete allegation where nothing has been proven, the officers have not been charged or gone to court. Perhaps it was fabricated to throw suspicion on the officers?
Your second reference to "beat the shit out of" which at most was slapped in the face four times with an open hand. No medical attention was given or required. Try reading the whole article.
Your third reference to a "torture chair" is about a restrain device used to control suspects who do not follow instructions or who may harm themselves. They are always videoed while in the chair and there are limits to how long they can be there at a stretch.
Here is a quote from a report of an interview as the mother of the deceased baby left the jail;
She said all week long she asked to be placed in the infirmary or see a doctor but she said that didn't happen.
She said she wasn't feeling well and began cramping in her cell.
Deshawn Balka said she went to the bathroom and she said that's when she had her baby in the toilet, thinking she was having a bowel movement.
So a woman with cramps who has been complaining all week thinks she is having a bowel movement but gives birth. Please note that nowhere did she state that she called out to jail staff for help.
None of your quoted articles have gone to court and are, at this point, allegations. It seems strange that the same people who insist on calling people caught in the act "suspects" are also the same people that believe every allegation against the police. Sure there are some bad officers but there are also some people who try to make the police look bad.
And finally nowhere in the "Always Resist" article is there any advice to resist the police. Read the article.
Considering how little you actually read in any of these articles I will "consider the writer" when I decide to take the advice. My opinion based on evidence gleaned from actually reading the quoted articles and other related articles is that the writer is a sensationalist who had no regard for facts.
Who holds the design and patent rights to the keys?
Design and patent rights are a civil matter and not a criminal matter. Until there is a law passed that criminalizes the possession of handcuff keys there is nothing the police can do.
There is only one set of legitimate buyers for these handcuffs.
There are actually at least five sets and possibly more; police, prison guards, court house guards , private security and bounty hunters. Basically anyone who has a legitimate reason for detaining someone else.
it is pretty difficult to unlock the handcuffs even you if had and could reach the key
Difficult is not impossible and with enough practice difficult becomes easy.
Keys can be in the mouth, swallowed, in a seam, in a concealed compartment in a belt loop, etc. There are many places to carry a key that will get by most searches. There was one instance where a man has a pouch surgically installed in his cheek just big enough to hold a handcuff key. Many "escape artists" conceal keys on their person for their acts and these keys are not found by the spectators, sometimes police officers, who search them.
So no, an accomplice is not necessary.
No matter how complex the key bolt cutters usually work but it is rather difficult to conceal a set of bolt cutters big enough to do the job on one's person and bolt cutters that large are not all that common. Hand cuff components are made of hardened steel and a small set will not work.
Hand cuffs are and never have been completely secure. They are more secure than the cuffs that have been around for years as those keys are very common now but they are less secure than hoped.
There used to be one key that would open every handcuff in current use. Now there are at least three different ones. Even this makes things more secure as the suspect has to have at least three keys to ensure escape. Three keys are much more difficult to conceal than one. Officers can easily carry three keys on their key ring. It is not about making escape impossible; just more difficult.
It has nothing to do with mass production. The reason is so that any officer can open any other officer's cuffs and time is lot lost trying to find the arresting officer and sorting out who owns which cuffs..
Did you read the article? All handcuff keys for a certain brand are identical. That is to allow one officer to handcuff a suspect and any other officer to remove the cuffs. The issue is that the arresting officer may not be anywhere around when the suspect needs to be uncuffed as the suspect may have been passed on for transport. This is the way handcuff keys work. Manufacturers are now trying to restrict the possession of keys by being selective to whom they sell. The printer/laser cutter method of making keys now makes this effort useless.
Every one of your arguments are taking small statements out of context, adding them together and creating a crisis where none is present. How about you look at the whole picture instead of putting blinders on to what is working.
According to my reading of NEJM and Science, XDR is appearing in many parts of the world in which TB is treated inadequately, such as Russia, and when it appears, it often can't be treated at all, the TB progresses and the patient often dies.
How does that statement relate at all to the US? The former USSR didn't even have a functioning health care system to start with thane they tried to change it. The US is nowhere near that. Yes, there are cuts in some area so that funding can be used more efficiently elsewhere. Comparing the US to USSR is not accurate. What is happening in the rest of the world and what is happening in the US are very different thing. Care to quote those articles that supposedly support your claims? Without quotes I will have to assume they do not exist and you are merely making things up.
Eventually people like you will be seen as "Chicken Little" and not believed. The health system in the US is not disintegrating as you seem to believe. It is nowhere near like it is in China and the former USSR
You're comparing the cost of an ICU bed with the cost of an ordinary hospital room with infectious precautions.
According to this site It costs at least $37,574 for a Tib Fib break with an average 4.8 day stay. That is $7827/day. Even if it cost $15000 to set the initial break that would be $4700/day. Hospital costs are high because nurses, doctors, pharmacists, etc are working 24/7, There is a lot of very expensive equipment that needs to be paid for , etc.
I think we as a society should spend at least as much for the active infectious diseases as we do for the theoretical risks of biowarfare.
The difference between an active infectious disease and biowarfare is that biowarwafe is designed to have a 90%+ mortality rate, spread extremely quickly and overwhelm a country before it can respond. Naturally occurring diseases are no where near that contagious or lethal.
I don't have all the details on whether the closing of that hospital was a good health care policy, or whether it was medically appropriate to keep those TB patients in motel rooms, so I'll have to suspend judgment until I get all the facts.
Considering that you do not know the facts them please do not comment on them and make them look like poor decisions. The facts are easy to find. Just use Google and critical thinking.The reason for closing the hospital was that it was costing $10 million/year to support 50 beds that were only ever occupied half the time. That money is much better spent on hospital isolation wards in areas that people are getting sick.
SARS went from zero to 900 deaths very quickly.
In an eight month period 900 people died of SARS. In an average year during the same period 167,000 to 333, 000 die from the common seasonal flue. This is an example of how using technical terms such as pandemic can blow things out of proportion. TB is not a new disease and neither is resistant TB. In the US the incidence of resistant TB is declining. In the last year reported there were 103 cases of resistant TB in the US. And no "outbreaks" of resistant TB.
The problem with Florida is that the Republican governor and legislature just closed down the very hospital they need to treat TB at a time when XDR is emerging as a real threat.
Prove this statement. How does closing down a 50 bed hospital have a major impact on an outbreak. You also need to justify the statement that "XDR is emerging as a real threat" when the actual numbers say something completely different. Show me how it is an emerging threat in North America.
As the NEJM says, the only way to deal with MDR and XDR strains is prevention.
I think you have very much oversimplified NEJM's position of XDR-TB. Here is an actual quote from a NEJM article;
All evidence suggests that XDR tuberculosis reflects a failure to implement the measures recommended in the WHO's Stop TB Strategy.5 This strategy emphasizes expanding high-quality DOTS programs, addressing HIV-associated tuberculosis and drug resistance, strengthening health care systems and primary care services, encouraging all providers to follow good practices, empowering patients and communities to improve health, and enabling and promoting research.
Prevention is only one part of the above strategy.
Many of them have latent disease, which means they feel OK but are transmitting TB
Here is an example where your information is completely incorrect. Here is a quote from the CDC fact sheet'
Persons with latent TB infection are not infectious and cannot spread TB infection to others.
Please get your fact straight.
Science magazine had even more pessimistic articles about XDR.
Care to cite any of these "science magazines"?
They sent a reporter to the former USSR, where they have no functioning health system
I believe there is a "functioning health care system" in North America so any comparison with the former USSR are invalid.
According to TFA, they're putting up TB patients in motels!
TB has a contagious stage and an non-contagious stage. The thing is that many people do not take their medication during the non-contagious stage and need to be watched. Putting up non-contagious patients who need to complete the second part of their treatment in hotels so proper medication can be ensured is not a bad thing. Many are homeless and all they need to have done is be fed and given medications at regular intervals. One does not need a hospital bed to do that. In cases of people with homes this would be done in their homes. I would much rather see a $50/day hotel used than a $3000/day hospital bed that could be used by an acute patient.
The numbers are not important. What's important is the emergence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) and extremely-drug resistant (XDR) strains. MDR strains are difficult to treat. Some doctors say that XDR strains can be treated with great difficulty and expense, but I've read of cases of XDR that doctors couldn't treat at all.
So fear mongering about a crisis that may never happen and is not happening now is more important that real facts and figures. This just plays into the hands of drug companies who w
I don't know why people think tracking an aircraft can't be done.
I never said it could not be done. I just said that doing it in an uncontrolled environment is very different from doing it in a controlled environment. I would have the same opinion is Big Dog. had been tested indoors on a rubber floor and the touted as being in its " final steps" of testing for real life deployment.
By the way, the tracking system you saw last year was for a much larger UAV. This is a man portable UAV,is much harder to track at distances and the area of the power receiver is also much smaller.
p to solve most problems with ground clutter
Ground clutter maybe but rain, dust storms, fog, etc will disperse laser light no matter how high the aircraft is. Remember that the lase source is in the ground clutter.
I suspect the laser will be vehicle mounted,
There are many places where vehicles can not go. If you restrict the use to areas where the truck can get to the the usefulness is greatly decreased.
Park your laser on any hilltop in your control
That is a very simplistic solution to a very difficult issue. In mountainous terrain such as Afghanistan there are many ridges that block LOS. The reason to us UAVs is to see behind those ridges to find insurgents.
Anyway, they appear to be too busy overcoming the problems to realize it's impossible.
That is my whole point; they have not done anything that has not been done before and therefore have not "overcome" any problems. Instead of doing a sanitized lab test and saying they are in the "final stages" do a real world test in poor conditions and then publicize it. Then maybe I will be less skeptical.
It does not matter how stable the aiming platform is it it can not track the target that is unstable as it reacts to winds. The other issue is that lasers are dispersed by airborne particles (dust), rain, head haze, range, etc. Will enough energy be transmitted over kilometers to keep the UAV in the air? What about trees, buildings and hills? Will they obstruct the beam. How heavy is the sending laser? The Stalker is designed to be deployable by a single Special Forced soldier. Can one deploy the laser recharger too?
Here are some issues that are greatly simplified by testing indoors in a wind tunnel;
1. Tracking; The aircraft does not move therefore tracking is trivial.
2. Range; Sure it may work at a few feet but does it work at a few kilometers?
3. Atmospheric conditions; Atmospheric conditions can be completely controlled indoors. Does it work in heat haze, rain, snow, dust, etc. at range?
At least do a test that remotely approximates a real world situation. Everyone knows that power can be transmitted by laser which is all that this test proves .. again. It still has not overcome the many known issues with using lasers to transmit power to aircraft. I effect it proves what has already been proven many times ind is not an advance at all.